Socks and Daisy Chains
by FalseFacts
Summary: She was a precocious girl with socks as colorful as her language. He was a cold and embittered man, lost in his own dark past. It was there amongst the tombstones and tearful mourners that they found one another. Oneshot.


I can not say for sure just how many times I have entered this place or how many times I've seen mourners weeping for their loved ones. When I was young, so young that my father still walked with me here, I used to cry too. Sometimes I'd even catch myself crying for those whom I did not know, simply because their tombstones were so close to hers. My father used to say that when everyone had left for the night these souls would gather around their graves and talk to one another. I never believed my father; he said I lacked what he called "childish faith". The truth of the matter was I hated my father and I simply could not understand why anyone dead or alive would choose to speak to a stranger instead of someone they loved. If she could speak, she'd speak to me.

I no longer conceder myself to be one of these saddened mourners, for I no longer grieve over her or any of the other faceless stones.

I walk passed the rows and rows of unending markers, my hands stuck deep into my pockets. The wind is beginning to pick up and so I walk faster. It is then that my eyes catch view of something so insignificant and yet so enticing. It is a pair of brightly colored knee-high socks. They are, as it would turn out, attached to the legs of a small girl who is sitting idly by one of the graves. She is neither crying nor deep in prayer; instead she holds in her hands a grouping of daisies. I stop and watch her; I have plenty of time, after all the grave I've come to see will not move at anytime. She seems distracted by her work; she is making a daisy chain; something which I have only seen in old picture books.

Aside from those vibrant socks of hers she wears a black skirt and a light jacket. Her blonde hair moves wherever the breeze wills it to go. Altogether this girl seems to be very out of place. She begins to hum; of what tune I do not know but I stand and listen just the same. I could just as easily snatch this child out of the graveyard and I dare say she would not so much as shout. I can't believe that she has yet to take notice of me; it's almost frustrating. Under normal circumstances I would have continued walking along but after years of coming to this place and being faced with the same morbid expressions time and time again, she is very refreshing and terribly annoying. I am starting to think that perhaps she has just come here to kill off her adolescent boredom. Children do strange things; children are strange things.

She looks up at me; her expression is hard to read but I think she wants me to explain myself.

"Uhh…nice daisy chain." It is the best I can manage; pathetic, I know.

Despite my awkwardness she responds to it "Thanks, it's for my mother." She points to the grave that she is sitting in front of, as though I need it to be pointed out to me.

"She killed herself three years ago."

I am taken aback by her bluntness and can only respond with "I…see…"

The girl wears this terribly obnoxious pout on her lips and it makes me think that the only thing attractive about this child is her socks. "Well that's what you wanted to know right? Most people say "I'm sorry for your loss. How did it happen?" In the end all anyone wants to know about is the how and not the why."

Now I don't know what repulses me more; this girl's attitude or the cruel nature of truth. This girl is simply too smart for her own good. If we were characters in one of those old gangster films this would be the point in which I'd pull out my gun and silence her. Sadly I am unarmed and a poor shot.

"Why do you bother making her daisy chains?" I am cold but she is colder.

"Why are you watching a little girl?" So she has been aware of me this whole time. She is clever and bothersome. "It may sound stupid but….I like your socks."

She is now staring at me as though I've just made an indecent proposal. "My socks? That's the best excuse you can come up with?"

"Actually, it's not an excuse it's the truth. I was on my way to visit someone and I saw your socks." She places her daisy chain upon her mother's grave, then turns to me mockingly, I swear she's laughing. "Oh yeah, if you're here to visit someone then why don't you have any flowers?"

It is as this point that my fascination with the girl's socks comes to an end. I shake my head bitterly at her and I walk off. Unfortunately, the girl had begun to have her own fascination with me. In fact she follows me up the hill and all the way into the back of the cemetery where a lone grave waits for us. I point to the grave; the girl kneels down in front of it and reads over the inscription.

"Joan Marie Bernat. Born May 25th, 1951. Died November 16th, 1982." She gets up from the grave and she scoffs at me "You should have brought flowers."

My voice becomes softer as I say "No. She hated flowers; it would be an insult to her if I placed them on her grave."

The girl pulls up one of her socks which had been easing its way down her leg since the start of our march up here. It is clear to see that the elasticity was not made very strong and I think it a shame. No matter where I go in life I always seem to run into the most abhorrent of women; this girl is no different. "That's strange. Your mom hated flowers, which are considered to be amongst the most beautiful and colorful things in this world and yet the first thing that attracted you to me was the color of my socks." She pauses there and does not pick up on her attempt to psychoanalyze me. It is for the best, I am sure.

"How did you know she was my mother?" I am mildly curious

"Just a guess." She shrugs. My curiosity is gone once more. I now notice a stain on one of her socks; the rainbow has been damaged.

"So why didn't she like flowers? Was she allergic?" I roll my eyes as I recount what my mother had once said.

"She didn't like receiving flowers because my father used to give her flowers after he had beaten her." I remember seeing the small paper card that would be attached to every bouquet she received. The card would have a cartoonish drawing of a dagger stabbing through a heart and it would read 'I'm sorry. I will love you forever.' I remember how my mother would cry and I would be left to comfort her, I her little man. How I detest such memories. How I wish to will them away.

"How'd she die?"

"Suicide."

For a long while neither of us spoke. That tune of which the girl was humming before returns to me and I try to name it but nothing I come up with seems to fit right. I return to my darker thoughts. I wish that little imp would get bored and walk off, yet I wish she'd stay and never leave. She would be my shadow then and my shadow would be a rainbow.

"Do you hate your mother?"

I look at her perplexed and say "Of course."

This is obviously not the answer she was expecting and she raises her eyebrow at me "When I was younger people asked me that all the time. I always said "No." I could never imagine some not loving their mother."

People used to ask me that to and I would lie. My father was perfectly content to see my mother go; it was I who begged him to bring me to her. I wanted to know why she had willingly left me with that bastard. I wanted her to explain herself to me, to beg for my forgiveness. I have been waiting for almost 29 years.

"I think it's stupid that you say you hate your mother. If you really meant it you wouldn't be visiting her. She was obviously in pain and she didn't know what to do about it. She was alone and scared and it's not like she wasn't thinking of you; she was. She didn't want you to have to live with a skittish woman who was afraid of her own husband, you had a chance to leave him when you got older, and she didn't."

I look at the girl with a scrutinizing glare. There is something in her eyes that tell me that these are her own words and while I don't agree with it she does a fine job at getting me to shut up for a while. That in it's self is a commendable act. She is an interesting girl; irksome and as colorful as those wondrous socks of hers.

"What's your name?"

"That's a bit off topic." She sneers, yet complies "I'm Olivier."

"Don't you children know how to introduce yourselves properly?" I scold her and then correct her mistake "I am Ian Barnat."

"I'm Olivier Faust; ya happy?" I smile sardonically at her name and I can't help but to think, how boyish it sounds.

Before I can speak again, she cuts me off ardently, "I know what you're thinking. 'Yes' I have a boy's name and 'no' my family is very much aware that I am a girl."

I let a small laugh escape my lips. It is so slight that I am certain only my ears have heard it. I would not wish to laugh any louder than that for Olivier seemed to be the type who'd have clocked me good.

"I wasn't going to say that. I was just curious as to who taught you to make a daisy chain."

"My mom." There is a certain snap to her voice as though it should be very obvious and that I am somehow simply oblivious to such a fact.

I give her a quizzical look and test to see if she can once more tell what I am thinking.

"Just because she killed herself doesn't mean she never taught me anything. Didn't your mom ever teach you something?"

It vexes me so as to how she reads me like a children's book. She need only look upon my face to know every little detail of my being. It is chilling, yet brilliant. Once more she has me thinking again of my childhood. My horrid and neglected past. I think carefully for a time as distorted and fuzz filled images swarm about in my mind. I try with a great deal of difficult to locate an event in my life that I could speak off. Then there it is. I see it clearly.

"She taught me how to draw."

Now it is her turn to laugh and judge, though she does so far more vocally than I. What she finds so humorous about such a statement is beyond me at this point but I don't bother to ask. I only assume. I assume that she thinks that such a fact is amusing for she can not picture me drawing, sketching, seeking a muse. I can not blame her for that, though. I do not strike many if even a few as the artistic type.

I am certain that it would shock her to know that I find myself drawing away in my home on a daily basis. Then coloring in all those fine lines in vivid colors, regardless of the event that is unfolding on the page.

For the most part this tends to add in some often unusual contradictions to my drawings for so often it is a bleak scene painted in yellows and greens. I've been told by my few close friends that I draw my world and color with my personality. In other words, I myself am a walking contradiction.

I stare down upon my mother's grave and my mind is stripped away of any true thoughts. I can only hear my words echoing as I speak, "Would you mind teaching me how to make a daisy chain?"

* * *

**AN: If you don't mind I'd love to hear your thoughts on my little one-shot. **


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